Читать книгу Waiting for Sparks - Kathy Damp - Страница 17

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHE KNEW SHE sounded juvenile, but it wasn’t fair. Dashing away the wetness on her cheeks, Emma half ran, half walked out of the hospital.

Every time she reached for something, her grandmother would snatch it out of her hand: sleepovers rejected for civic service, particular friends deemed unsuitable. The list ran on and on.

Emma crossed the parking lot, the asphalt so heated it felt squishy under her sneakered feet. A tall woman dodged out of Emma’s way and then grabbed her by the arms.

“Zoo!” Emma exclaimed.

“Hey, Emms.” Zoo hugged her. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with the bulls at Jem Silver’s ranch. Sorry I didn’t text as soon as I heard you were in town. I’ve been swamped.”

Zoo would be a voice of reason in this mess. They’d been friends forever, as different as two people could be. Zoo, thin, with black hair and pale blue eyes, attracted boys like flies on manure, as Emma was fond of saying. Zoo spoke her mind and got away with it. Zoo had sweated away on ranches and farms since she was old enough to ride her bike from town.

This work ethic of Zoo’s had earned her Nomi’s seal of approval. Zoo was everything her grandmother wanted, and Emma never heard the end of it. Fortunately, Zoo was also fun and kind.

Emma steered her friend toward the Omni. “Do you know what she did to me this time?”

Zoo grinned. “Haven’t heard that in a while. What’s the tyrant up to now?” She had, on more than one occasion, stood up to Naomi, inspiring awe in Emma.

Emma rationalized that it was easier to butt heads with Naomi when you weren’t related. Chet did it all the time, and he lived. Then again, it could be Zoo and Chet were vertebrates, unlike herself.

“She told—no, ordered—me to plan the Jamboree. Never mentioned my trip to Europe once.” New situation, old anger, she acknowledged, but it seemed fresh each time it happened.

A flood of words gushed forth as Emma unlocked the door to her car. Heat poured out. “My only family member, and she pulls rank like when she got me a teaching job at the high school without asking me—and I went along with it. Like when Nomi overrode Grumpa on...on just about everything.” She moved around the outside of the car, opening doors and windows. “Darn it, I hate feeling like I have no backbone.”

“Lighten up, Emma. Tell your grandmother you won’t do it. But don’t hate her for asking—um, assuming.”

Emma hid a grudging smile. “How can I love someone so much and still want to put massive distance between us?”

“You don’t want Nomi out of your life, just out of the way of your life.”

“You ruined a perfectly good temper tantrum, you know?”

Her friend smiled. “My day, I guess.” She laughed as she said, “Just told Jem Silver his sperm count’s too low to breed. That ruined his day, too.” She laughed some more at Emma’s open mouth. “For his bull to breed.”

Emma imagined the scene with the handsome rancher and a giggle slipped out. She slid into the sizzling seat. “Yow. Hot. Okay. I’ll go back to town, drum up a replacement—before I hit Nomi with my decision.” She turned the key and squinted up at her friend, standing next to the car. “Thanks, Zoo.”

“Any time, you reactionary, you. Hey, what’s this I hear about the summer stud tackling you in front of the entire student body? That where your face got messed up?”

* * *

AS EMMA ENTERED TOWN, loneliness wormed its way around her heart. Sparks’s offer of food to make up for driving her into the dirt came to mind. If she hadn’t imposed a man moratorium, she’d go out with him.

He’d be fun. She wanted fun. She wanted—oh, blast—she wanted to stuff her face at the Dairy Delite. Emma punched the brakes and careened into the hamburger stand’s parking lot. The squeal drew the looks of those lined up by the order window, including a blond man towering above the others.

With his head thrown back, Sparks was laughing at something someone in the group had said. By the time she cooled her face enough to get out of the car and walk to the window, the others had drifted away, leaving Sparks to watch her approach.

“Hi,” he said.

Zoo’s teasing zipped through her head, and she blushed. Their complexions matched, red for red. On the heels of that was Zoo’s suggestion she find a replacement to plan the Jamboree.

Emma needed someone who got along well with everyone, although why that would be a requirement since her grandmother didn’t, Emma wasn’t sure, but it seemed a good thing. And the best person would be one who didn’t know how...how her grandmother could be. That left no one who lived in Heaven and the surrounding area. “Hi, yourself,” she replied.

Those fabulous blues scanned her face, and then his gaze flickered away.

“You ran away from my grandmother.” Really, she didn’t blame him.

The redness of his face deepened as he glanced down at his foot and scraped some gravel.

She continued in a brisk tone, “Can you believe my grandmother ordered me to plan the Jamboree? I’m about to go to England.” She’d leave out the part about being dumped by Brad. About how “baby, I’ll always be there for you” was merely a fairy tale.

Today she was especially looking for someone to lift her spirits.

“Imagine that,” he muttered, and stared at the ground, watching an ant struggle with a crumb of bun. “She say anything else?”

“No.” Somebody ought to tell Mr. Gorgeous about SPF 45. If he kept burning his face like that, he’d be getting bumps frozen off with liquid nitrogen by age forty.

“Nothing else?” He seemed somewhat disappointed; no, bitterly disappointed.

Obviously, she didn’t know him well—but still, she expected excitement, interest. Instead, he seemed as stimulated by her pronouncement as an eighth grader assigned to plot a time line for the Revolutionary War.

Starla Fleming slid the window open with a bang. Sparks startled.

“Are you gonna order something, Emma? If you’re not, I’m gonna sit in the back and watch my soaps,” Starla rasped, then peered at Emma’s scraped face.

Emma ordered an orange cream shake after a wary look at the scab Starla was scratching on her arm. The woman disappeared from the window, the roar of the shake machine following.

Emma turned back to Sparks. “My grandmother thinks she can con me into organizing the Jamboree. I have my own life.” Who could she find to take her place? Someone ignorant of her grandmother’s schemes, that was who. She scrolled through a mental list... Empty.

Her red-faced companion chewed his bottom lip and swept the toe of his sneaker back and forth. Finally, he looked up at her. “She trusts you, Emma. It’s a big year.”

Emma’s disgust came blurting out in an ugly noise. That was feminine, she thought, duly embarrassed. She cleared her throat. “Big year, my foot. The Jamboree hasn’t changed in my lifetime. She’s charmed you like I hear you’re charming the rest of the town. You don’t know what it’s like. All you have to do is design the fireworks, pass your instructions over to your techs and skip on to the next adventure.” Stop it, Emma. Transferring her anger at her grandmother to this innocent visitor was not cool.

“Hey, Spaaarks!” kids yelled from a passing car. “Dude!”

The man was a magnet. Everyone liked him. The hair on her arms prickled, then she gave him a broad, welcoming smile, like a hungry spider that had spotted a fly.

And he’s new in town.

The window being flung open startled them both this time. Starla’s arm emerged. After a quick look for the scab, Emma slid her money through the window and grabbed the shake. The window slid shut. A moment later, the blast of a TV sounded.

“I’ve had things not turn out. I know what it feels like,” Sparks said, his brilliant blues on her boring hazels.

She jutted out her chin, momentarily forgetting her mission in the rush of resentment. “Sure you have.” But her tone was not friendly. She’d be the first to admit she was acting the drama queen. Pull yourself together, girl.

Should she ask him straight out to run the Jamboree or make more small talk? Hadn’t he wanted to make it up to her for slamming her into the end zone in front of the under-eighteen population of Heaven?

“My dream was to have parents. It never happened.” He said the words matter-of-factly, as if he’d commented on the heat, which was substantial and was pitting her underarms out in a most unbecoming way.

The ant in the crack by her feet suddenly seemed immense compared to how small she felt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” she managed to choke out.

Sparks must have sat on the front steps like she had on birthdays. She used to imagine her mother was a lost princess held by a wicked king.

“Maybe you ought to go see your grandmother and get it straightened out,” he said.

This reminded Emma of her brilliant idea. She sucked up another mouthful of shake while she scrutinized his burned face. “You might want to wear a heftier sunscreen.”

“My face isn’t always this red.” He mopped his brow.

But Emma was barely listening. “Didn’t you say you wanted to make it up to me, you know, for tackling me?”

The color of his faced plunged to a deeper shade. “With food. I said, food.”

Perhaps, Emma thought, looking more closely—easy to do with Sparks—he was blushing. What had she said that would make him blush? Oh, never mind the man’s skin tone, she chided. Get to the point.

She leaned toward him, eyes wide in entreaty. She hoped it looked like entreaty and not that her contacts had dried out. “What if you planned the Jamboree? You’re getting to know a lot of people here. They like you.”

“Me?” His voice shot up. Somewhat cute, really. “I...already have a job. You really should talk to your grandmother.”

Emma released an exasperated sound. “You only have to design your fireworks. You don’t even have to blow them up. So you’ll have all sorts of free time. Nomi’s created this gigantic black binder with all the procedures already mapped out.” She snapped her fingers. “Piece of cake.”

Sparks’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Emma, talk to your grandmother.”

She stepped back. Sparks looked as if he wanted to crawl under the ant.

A familiar emotion crept up Emma’s neck. “What is it you don’t want to tell me?” she asked. “I can see it in your face.” She hadn’t taught junior high for nothing. Very good liars aside, she’d learned to spot omissions.

He gulped. “I’m no good at keeping secrets, but she made me, Emma, I swear.”

So that was the reason for his flushed face and repeated urges for her to talk to her grandmother. For “she” could only mean one person. One person who didn’t need a first or a last name. One person who thought she was the master puppeteer. Emma’s back teeth fused. She gritted out, “What did my grandmother make you promise not to tell me?”